11. 26. 2007

Rockefeller tonight: A truly green Christmas tree lights up NYC

Tonight, a change is gonna come to the 76-year-old tree lighting tradition at Rockefeller Center. CNN reports that the 84-foot-tall Norway spruce will be illuminated with 30,000 multicolored light-emitting diodes (LEDs), strung on five miles of wire.

These energy-efficient LEDs replace the incandescent bulbs used in the past, reducing the holiday display's electricity consumption from 3, 510 to 1,297 kilowatt hours per day. Translated in terms for the rest of us the daily savings equals the amount of electricity consumed by a 2,000-square-foot house in a month.

To compliment the green effort, the owners of Rockefeller Center, Tishman Speyer, have taken the opportunity to show off a new 365-panel solar energy array that will generate electricity on the roof of one of the complex's buildings. It's the largest privately owned solar roof in Manhattan.

Travelers and community members alike can see the illuminated Christmas tree daily from 5:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. through the first week of January.

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